Handheld wireless communication devices can be powered by one or more internal batteries. A major performance criterion for such devices is their battery life, and a large portion of battery power is consumed in one or more power amplification blocks of the device's transmitter. In many handheld wireless applications, a switched mode power supply, which provides the supply voltage to a power amplifier in the power amplification block, along with a switching regulator, is used to reduce overall power consumption. However, this requires careful control of the switched mode power supply to achieve optimal power savings. Many conventional designs use a fixed-step, or continuous control technique for controlling the switched mode power supply because of the associated power efficiency savings.